Late last year, the Mayo Clinic and Google inked a partnership that may prove to be a primary harbinger of what the future confluence of healthcare and technology will look like. The alliance, set to last decades, focuses on developing healthcare applications for advanced cloud computing and AI-powered analytics. The goal is purposefully open to interpretation: develop innovations in the delivery of care.

Sometimes, you just need to get to the point. And that’s what this blog is about—what is the point of making a digital transformation? I’m not going to lie—it is a huge undertaking, and it’s expensive. It will also fundamentally change how you do business in a multitude of ways, so there better be a big upside, right?

Here are six reasons it’s worth the time, effort, and expense for manufacturing companies to implement a digital transformation...

Do you have piles—or roomfuls—of disorganized, yet important, papers lingering around your office? 

If so, maybe you also have a newly hired and overly ambitious office manager, and maybe one day, she decides to clear the clutter and (thinking it's a good thing) tosses out a bunch of seemingly "worthless paper?"

She didn't know that old dusty pile of files from the 90's was important...and you didn't have time to tell her before she made an irretrievable mistake (barring a desperate trip to the local dump!) Finding a new office manager will be the least of your problems! 

Or, maybe you have a well-organized physical filing system...

Either way, do you ever worry about the what-ifs?

What if you lost it all? What if there was a flood? What if there was a fire? Or what if...something worse?

Or...maybe you keep paper documents in secure off-site storage, but you're tired of writing that monthly check with the extra charges for file retrievals?

Hey, what if you never had to worry about any of that again? There is a much better way...it's called “Scan To Zero.”

One major German automaker claims they lose over $40,000 a minute if they have to take a machine offline for maintenance or repairs. How much do you lose? 

Machines break down and need to be fixed. That much is unavoidable...as are the costs of downtime. But new Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)-powered machinery, combined with digital transformation technologies like cloud and edge computing, are helping manufacturing companies—both similar and different from yours—redefine the standards of efficiency. It truly is a new industrial revolution...

Large, multi-purpose business application suites are on their way out, and honestly, that’s not a very bold statement. The true needs of business vary immensely. Very similar companies may do things very differently. Even in the same company, different business units usually need vastly different tools and capabilities to support their role. And as business conditions change, tools and capabilities need to be adjusted or changed. 

Cloud provides instant adjustment, customization, and scalability at the click of a button. Swap out one SAAS for another! Never before have the capabilities of a business been so open to interpretation and experimentation. The “cloud” might as well be called a “canvas.”